Light Detection and Ranging (“LIDAR”) is a sensing technology using light pulses (e.g., light from a laser) to determine a distance to objects. Doppler Wind LIDAR systems use light pulses to generate measurements of wind fields in the atmosphere based on the characteristics of the reflected light pulses returned from aerosols suspended in the atmosphere. For example, Doppler Wind LIDAR systems may calculate the distance to aerosols suspended in the atmosphere based on the time difference between transmitting a light pulse or signal and receiving the reflection of that light pulse or signal and/or may calculate the velocity of the aerosols suspended in the atmosphere based on the frequency shift between a transmitted light pulse or signal and a received reflected light pulse or signal. The measurements generated by Doppler wind LIDAR systems may be used to generate wind profiles and other models providing information about the atmosphere.
Current data acquisition and processing software for Doppler wind LIDAR systems is focused on processing during airborne missions and requires long development times to implement or try new algorithms. With the focus on real time data and providing results during missions, current data acquisition and processing software for Doppler wind LIDAR systems uses simple processing algorithms and merely archive output data products to files. Because of this need for the data and program architecture to be optimized in order to keep up with the high-speed data acquisition and processing rate, there is limited scalability in the current real time system. The optimization process takes time, and it needs to be done for every new addition to the real time version. Quite often, the requirement and the user specifications change without advance notice during the development of a new module. In general, the development time in C is longer when compared to the development time in LabVIEW.
Additionally, the current software uses only a basic visual display in order to maximize the data acquisition rate and data throughput. The selection of displays in real-time version written in C is very limited. To develop a new one, the development time can be too long to be implemented in time for the next field operation. Development of new data product displays in the current real time system in general requires a long time and often requires reorganization of the entire program architecture due to hardware control constraints.
The current software also runs on an aircraft based system in real time, which means that the software is not available for updating, testing, and data processing when the aircraft is on a mission, such as NASA's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Process (“GRIP”) hurricane mission. Also, to date there has been no GRIP data processing software for NASA's Doppler Aerosol Wind LIDAR (“DAWN”).
Further, the current software makes Doppler wind LIDAR data processing airborne wind LIDAR data possible for only a small part of the algorithm with limited capabilities in non-scientific software. This may cause users to resort to other software for processing which does not meet the requirements of data processing and display.